


The Threads of Fate Weave Into You

by HeyYahtzee



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Gen, Goodbyes, vaxleth!kid, vox machina spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-30 02:20:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,556
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15742161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HeyYahtzee/pseuds/HeyYahtzee
Summary: First, nothing; light and a forest of ash unfolds, whispers of friends, and here is death and the aftermath. Molly knows something is coming for him, but this girl is not what he expected, and her words are the most foreign of all.





	The Threads of Fate Weave Into You

**Author's Note:**

> Aaaaaaay I wrote this in the middle of the night when I couldn't sleep! This is the story of how Mollymauk meets the vaxleth!kid and also a cool dog!

It was dark for a while, and then a light breached from the ether and speckled the hollow ground with soft strokes of lightning and effervescent suns. Gray, mostly, and the darkest blues and purples he’s ever seen.

White at the edges of everything.

He lays on his back, a soft smile on his lips, fingers running over the iridescent coils of his coat. 

“Well this certainly doesn’t feel familiar,” he says loudly, “But I’m assuming dying is strange that way.”

The stillness of the realm makes his skin hum, like he’s the only thing in the whole wide universe giving off an ounce of latent energy.

“Come on then, whatever you are! Whatever he did, I’m ready for the consequences!”

But nothing comes.

The man known as Mollymauk sits up and squints through the shifting shapes around him, a forest of smoke and light, moving figures, in the distance three figures, crouching together as ash falls and scatters around them.

In this world they are not real. 

In this world, Beau’s hunched, rough stance is composed of smoke and trickles of sourceless light. Caleb, pulling the earth apart with his magic, is a mirage. Nott, standing over his body, is a movement at the corner of his eye that shimmers like fire through imperfect glass. 

“Molly said… not to steal from happy people” Nott’s quiet voice drifts out of the flurries, disembodied, like she’s speaking from everywhere at once.

There’s a sinking feeling, as if something pressing down on his chest, his shoulders, his arms and legs. The flat smell of dirt.

“Long may he reign…” Beau’s voice bites out.

“Shine bright circus man…” comes Caleb’s gentle sorrow.

Molly’s smile turns soft.

“You’re each so much more than you know,” he says quietly, “You’ll see. One day. The cards… one day you’ll know everything you can achieve.”

The figures turn to dust one by one, swirling off in the direction they had been traveling, into the world that no longer exists within his grasp.

Out in the distance, a different distance, something howls.

Molly straightens up, eyes sharp. He turns and walks toward the sound. Finally. 

Soft blue eyes at the edge of the fog.

Pink tongue on teeth.

“Well hello there,” Molly grins, “Come for me? Do tell!”

Out of the white and grey comes a dog nearly four feet tall at the shoulders with black silken fur hanging long and smooth against its slim structure. Its ears are tall and pointed, and it’s snout is long like a wolf’s.

After everything he’d heard, everything he’d seen in the mirror, he’d expected something a bit more infernal.

The dog sniffs around the manifested clearing, sniffs Molly, and then howls with its head bent low. Up close now, Molly sees a silver cord around its neck, and at the end of it, the skull of a raven.

A figure in a black cloak steps out beside the dog. White and grey hands speckled with deep purples and greens, adorned in a dozen sparkling silver rings unfold from the garments. They rise to the black hood and pull it away.

She’s young, twenty maybe, with bright violet eyes and a cascading dress of iridescent black that wraps around her small, stocky body like a pool of shadows. 

“I’ll be honest,” Molly says, a grin curling across his lips, “You’re not what I was expecting.”

The young woman brushes her dark curls away from her face and grins, “I’d be surprised if I was.” 

She waves her hand in the general direction of the clearing. A boulder the size and shape for sitting upon sifts out of the fog. The dog bounds over to it and curls up at it’s base, the woman perching lightly above her companion. Out of her cloak comes a small flute made of what appear to be delicate branches twined together into elegant lacework. By all accounts, a flute with that many holes in it shouldn’t play, but the young woman finds a tune on it without a whisper of difficulty.

“You can call me Violet, and this is Rogue,” she says, gesturing at the dog.

“You come for the dead?”

“Some of them.”

“You are exceptionally vague, aren’t you?”

The young woman tilts her head, “Those who do know me call me the Duskshepherd, or the Shepherd of the Small…”

She pauses, plays another low note on her flute, “We’re escorts. For the spirits of children.”

Molly looks at her curiously, “I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not exactly a child.”

Violet smiles and nods, “My matron was worried that you would be combative, considering the violent way that you passed over and your obsessive denial of what could be chasing you into the grave. Rogue and I purposefully portray a kinder, calmer presence than the Shadowfell and the Grey Acres are capable of.” 

“Your matron? The Raven Queen? Worried about me? This seems an awful lot for one lowly spirit. I’m not worth all this. I’m sure I’ll suffer just fine without an escort to my predecessor’s personal hell.”

“Not if you knew what I know,” Violet says.

Molly’s smile falters, “You know?”

The woman nods, “It’s important to know what you’re getting yourself into, don’t you think?”

Molly reaches for his swords instinctively, “Then you  _ are _ here to take me to a doomed life of torture and despair. You said it yourself: chasing me to my grave! Well, fine, but you should know that I’m going to relish fighting it every second! I don’t deserve the penance of that monsters mistakes!”

The young woman shakes her head, her eyes softening fondly, “Oh, Mollymauk Tealeaf, you already paid the price for your past life. They stripped everything from you. They tried to doom you to wandering the unforgiving world without even yourself… it’s time to rest.”

“What?”

“My matron asked me to escort you into the Grey Acres, so that you can find peace and equilibrium. It’s over, Molly. It’s time to stand still. To rest.”

A wretched sob chokes it’s way out of his throat, and then another and another until Mollymauk, the grin on the edge of the night, is bent over his knees in the ash, tears streaming down his pale face as he struggles to breathe.

Rogue lifts her head, then gets to her feet and nuzzles Molly’s chin. Violet kneels beside him, her hands gentle pressing into his shoulders. A heavy weight falls across his back, and when he has the strength to wipe the tears from his eyes, he sees a long black wing, larger than Yasha’s even, wrapped around him.

“I always thought I’d have to answer for crimes I didn’t commit,” he says softly.

“A common experience. The cruelty committed at the previous soul's hands did warrant a rather long argument about principles and standards and that sort of thing. I saw the list myself,” Violet grimaces.

“Don’t you dare tell me! I’ve worked very hard to keep myself from knowing and I will continue, thank you!”

“Over your dead body?” she asks, face the picture of innocence, and eyes just as devious.

Molly squints at her, a slow chuckle bubbling up from his gut, “You know, you don’t really seem like the servant of a god.”

“Sounds tedious.”

“What are you then? An avatar? Spirit creature? Dead yourself?”

“Oh, I’m very much alive,” Violet says, standing and returning to her perch, “I’m the Raven Queen’s granddaughter. Her heir, eventually. My father was her champion and she used his death to… orchestrate my existence? Gods that sounds awful.”

“It really kind of does,” Molly agrees, “Born of a dead man? Never thought it was possible myself.”

“It isn’t, but after dad returned as a revenant… she revitalized him, placed a piece of her own energy within his soul. She didn’t force anything, of course, it was just a chance, an outcome that she allowed to exist, and… here I am!” Violet says cheerfully, eyes downcast at her flute.

“What happened… after?” Molly asks, leaning over with his elbows propped on his knees. 

“They defeated a great evil and my father returned to the Raven Queen’s side in the Shadowfell and eight months later my mother welcomed me into the world with my aunts and uncles at her side.”

“But not your father?”

“No. His contract forbids him from returning, but he cheats sometimes. He’s learned how to bind his spirit to a creature and let it lead him through the world, but he can never be himself on the material plane unless she wills it.”

“I’m sorry,” Molly says.

“They’ll be together again. My father and his sister, too. I’m going to make sure of it. When I take my grandmother’s place I’ll be able to do whatever I want,” Violet replies.

“Sounds like a lot of responsibility,” Molly says quietly.

“Pretending I don’t see my father on a weekly basis is harder. If they found out I could see him and they couldn’t…” Her eyes go dark and her jaw sets into a hard line.

“Do you want to hear your fortune?” Molly asks suddenly, reaching into his coat for his tarot cards.

Violet raises her eyebrow, “I always thought it was kind of pointless to get my fortune. I already know where I’m going to end up.” 

“But do you know how you’re going to get there?”

Violet grins, “Alright, try me.”

Molly shuffles the deck quickly, takes a deep breath, and pulls.

“The Tower,” he says, “Change is coming, and probably not the pleasant kind.”

“To be expected,” Violet agrees. At her feet, Rogue pricks her ears and whines.

Molly pulls another card.

“The Fool: You are still innocent, even though you believe you are not.”

“I’ve seen too much to be innocent.”

Molly tilts his head, “But have you lived it? Seems to me you mostly show up for the aftermath.”

Violet bites her lip, “Fine. Continue.”

A third card.

“The High Priestess: You will find your own way, though your path is set in one direction. It is your own strength that will lead you where you need to go, not the strength of others.”

Violet sits stiffly, thoughtfully. Slowly, she nods.

“You’re a good person, Mollymauk Tealeaf.”

“In that case, can I know your real name?”

Violet snorts and shakes her head, “Only four people know my real name, to prevent anyone from binding me and using my power for evil. The one downside to godhood, I guess.”

“Ah, it was worth a try,” Molly shrugs.

Through the ash there is the sound of creaking wood and horses.

“How long have we been here?” Molly asks. 

“Three days,” Violet says and rises to her feet. Rogue is up in an instant, trotting happily to the spot where they’d buried him and plopping down under the grave marker Caleb had constructed, now visible in the shifting light at the very edge of the clearing.

Molly touches the coat on his body, watching the real one, the tangible one, fluttering softly in the wind.

They watch as the Mighty Nein step from the half realized carriages into the small realm. Jester leans on Beau, while Fjord, Caleb, and Nott stay near the cart. There is also someone Molly does not recognize but desperately wishes to compliment, with vibrant pink hair and sparkling armor.

“I’ve never actually been to a grave before…. Not of someone I knew…” Jester’s voice says like an afterthought of the wind.

They’re kneeling at his feet, somber and restless.

“I think he’s still here with us.” She’s more confident this time, the bright light that shines at Jester’s core flickering and shimmering through the ash. 

“Can I?” Molly asks.

“They won’t feel it,” Violet says, and she begins to play a tune that feels as though it’s coming out of his ribcage, where his heart should be beating but isn’t.

Molly falls to his knees beside Jester and kisses her forehead softly.

“Never forget that love is strength,” he whispers into her ear.

Then Beau, whose cheek is stiff under his lips, “Take care for me. Heal.”

As he’s moving away her form shifts, and words come out of the smoke, “I think so, too.”

“Thank you, Molly,” Jester’s voice rings clearly in his head.

“I took his cards… do you want to pull one?”

“Yeah!”

“The moon, again,” Molly chuckles.

“I pulled this the first time I met him…this is his card”

And as the card falls into the ash next to the makeshift grave marker, the symbol of the moon, the Moonweaver, carves itself into the ground.

Fjord’s sword manifests jagged and crystalline like ice as Fjord approaches the grave and salutes.

“I’ve met a lot of people, but I don’t think I’ll ever meet a character as unique as you, Molly.”

“Never say never!” Molly crows, “You’ll find your answers if it’s the last thing you do!” and he kisses his cheek as well before darting towards Nott and Caleb.

He kisses Nott on the head first, “Keep them safe. That’s your job now.”

For Caleb a lingering kiss and a hand on his cheek, “Don’t let it ruin you, friend. Forgive, or revenge, I don’t care. All you need to do is come out the other side.”

It’s as his backing away that the crackling figure of Yasha manifests and passes straight through him. She drops to her knees in front of his grave, displacing Beau and Jester.

She growls, and it becomes thunder, the realm around them shaking with the strength of it, the thunder becoming a shattering of lightning and a terrible scream. Her wings are frighteningly real here, and Violet seems to sense it, too, because her music mellows into a calming lullaby Molly thinks he’s heard once through an open window.

“Yasha” Molly whispers.

He walks slowly to her. Her wings have pushed everyone else back, but not him. He places his hand on her shoulder, presses his lips to the back of her head like a crown, and whispers into her hair.

“Bring balance back to this world my dear. Bring it all back around, and you shall find peace.”

Yasha stands, and the shimmering, dancing lights of his friends seem to waver toward her, but Yasha’s intangible form pushes out of the clearing, out of vision, and out of existence.

Then the tall form he hadn’t recognized before is standing over his grave, and there’s a breeze that cuts through the stillness like an intimate hand. 

Molly feels lighter, calmer. 

“I’m ready,” he says.

When he turns back to Violet, he finds himself in the presence of an elegant figure in a fine black tunic and pants, aura overflowing the bounds of her physical form, crowned with the skull of a raven that partially obscures her face. Her flute is twice as long now, and as she blows a melody into the ether, things begin to shift around them, grey trees springing from the fog and nothingness until a path carves its way into the distance.

Molly offers Violet his arm and she takes it, her eyes sparkling with the same wild spark as before.

“Y’know, you’re Violet, and I  _ am _ violet,” Molly says as they wander down the way.

Violet laughs, and the song in the air picks up speed.


End file.
